[extropy-chat] Email Postage

[Brian Lee]

I don't use Yahoo or AOL, but I use Hotmail for a great reason. I have years 
of references to my hotmail address. Since hotmail doesn't support POP, I'm 
stuck checking this address. Therefore, I check this address the most and 
use it the most. As soon as hotmail supports POP, I'll set up Gmail to pull 
down my hotmail addresses and stop using hotmail.

I understand this fee as AOL and Yahoo charging external accounts to deliver 
email to AOL/Yahoo accounts. So Exi-chat would pay five cents per email 
delivered to AOL/Yahoo.

I see this as providing little more than letting spammers willing to pay a 
nickel access to my inbox as it will bypass spam filters.

BAL

>From: Robert Bradbury <robert.bradbury at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Email Postage
>Date: Mon, 6 Feb 2006 16:00:06 -0500
>
>I am under the impression that the Yahoo/AOL payment plans are "external"
>sender pays.  I.e. the payment is for the delivery, not the sending.  (I
>can't believe any SPAMers would be sending from Yahoo/AOL accounts unless
>they are compromised systems functioning as bot-relays.)
>
>If they want they, as others have suggested, cap the number of "free" sent
>emails to some number X per day where X is greater than the average a
>spammer would like to send.  I suspect one has to do blanket spamming over 
>a
>very short time in order for it to be effective because of the rapid
>adaptation of the filters.
>
>Now, the question would be how many people on the ExI list use Yahoo or AOL
>for their receiving address (and *why* would you do so when you can switch
>to Gmail)???.
>
>I suspect that what might have to happen is that there be some type of
>approval process for mailing list senders who have large numbers of
>Yahoo/AOL subscribers.  Alternatively all incoming mail after some free # 
>of
>messages gets "delayed" delivery if you haven't paid.  This puts a throttle
>on the spammers and gives time for the filtering systems to adjust their
>recognition capabilities and toss the incoming spam.
>
>One point to consider is that you are receiving a "free" service (an
>off-site mailbox and filtering service).  Unless one is arguing that "free
>lunches" are justified you ultimately have to come up with some way of
>paying for it.  Its easy enough now for anyone who wants to host a mailing
>list and/or mailboxes to pickup a remotely located server (e.g.
>UnixShell.com) for $8+/month.  I don't see citing mailing lists is
>reasonable reason for objecting to payment for delivery.
>
>Robert


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